The Stork
by WickedisWicked
Summary: "The news had been much too much of a shock. Everything had finally been going well! The last thing she needed now was change, let alone one this influential" Post-ep Man in the Woods. All Cal, I promise! This will be multi chap
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hi all! This is my first Unforgettable fanfic. It's something I've been thinking about for a long time (since the premiere of season two). It's set somewhere after season two episode two. I hope you like it and remember to R&R!

Also, my descriptions throughout the fic of NYC may not be exactly spot on as I have only visited three of four times.

Ch1

The feeling hit her again, even harder than it had the last time. She felt as though she couldn't keep it at bay any longer. Suddenly, without warning, Queens homicide detective Carrie Wells walked quickly, so as not to raise suspicion, from her usual office chair to the rosy-walled women's washroom near the squad room.

Once inside she leaned against the sickeningly pink wall and breathed a few times as deeply as she could manage. As hard as she tried, she couldn't control her urge. Carrie dragged herself to the toilet stall across the bathroom. If anyone else came in the washroom, she didn't want them finding her like this. She leaned over the gleaming white porcelain bowl of the small, surprisingly clean toilet and lost the few scraps of food she had managed to force in to her mouth this morning.

Carrie pulled down on the shiny silver handle to flush the toilet. Slowly, she slid the slightly sticky metal bolt out of its lock and gave a small shove with her shoulder to push the pale pink wooden door open. What, or rather who, she saw standing just outside the stall in question giving her a knowing look, made her stop dead in her tracks.

"Tell me everything," Jo said, arms crossed across her chest.

Still rather shell shocked, Carrie told Jo what she had told anyone who had noticed her condition, or cared to ask.

"It's a stomach flu, Jo. Nothing else. I'm fine," Carrie assured her. She took a step toward the clear soap dispenser and squirted a few drops into her hands.

"Carrie, you haven't had a fever, you've only been sick in the morning, you haven't been at home, recovering and, most importantly, you've been avoiding coffee. You're obviously pregnant. The only question is, and, really, it is the most important, who is the father?"

What followed could only be described as an uncomfortable silence. Carrie turned on the warm water tap of the silver sink and then the cold. Carrie turned off the cold metal tap, but still said nothing.

"Please tell me it's not that idiot James you've been telling me about. I mean really, he couldn't have-" the medical examiner was quickly cut off by Carrie.

"James isn't an idiot," she said. At that moment it was almost as if a momentary staring contest started between her and Jo. A half a second later both her and Jo burst out laughing.

"Okay…" Carrie admitted reluctantly. "Maybe be he was a bit of an idiot, but he was nice."

Jo took a few deep breaths to recuperate from their laughing fit.

"So… is he the father," she asked, as earnestly as she could, considering their earlier giggle fest.

"No, oh god, no," Carrie replied quickly. Though James was nice she couldn't imagine raising a family with him.

"Well then, who is it? Have you had any other boyfriends recently,"

Quickly, Carrie averted her gaze. She dried her hands on a piece of brown paper towel.

"I have to go," Carrie said as she started to make her way towards the door.

She did an awkward walk-run back to the Major Crimes division of the NYPD. When she reached a wall with a mirror, Carrie took a moment to give herself a good once over. The way her ruby hair was slightly frizzed and the formation of heavy purple bags under her eyes reminded her of a day not too long ago:

_She'd been nauseous, tired and outright annoyed at everyone for days. Heck, even Jo had told her she was acting cranky!_

_Reluctantly, Carrie finally agreed to go to a doctor's appointment at her local hospital near her apartment in Queens._

_It was a dull, grey Tuesday when she walked into the small hospital, the instant smell of rubber and something sterile threatened to overwhelm her. As quickly as she could, Carrie mad her way to the receptionist's counter at the other side of the hospital. She waited in the line that consisted of an older gentleman who was paler than a sheet, a young woman with a child who, no matter how hard she tried wouldn't stop crying, and a tall man with crutches that appeared to be too short for him and and exceedingly large plaster cast on his right leg. After checking in with the characteristically bored receptionist, whose monotone voice was the opposite of the neon green hair she sported, Carrie proceeded to waiting area C to see her usual doctor. As she sat on the hard plastic chair she couldn't seem to sit still. She tapped her in manicured nails (the smell of nail polish made her want to lose what meagre scraps of mild food she was able to consume), her feet clad in stylish yet comfortable boots mimicked the movement of her hands._

_"Carrie Wells," the soft, paper thin voice of doctor McMahon said as she looked around the waiting room. Carrie picked up her leather jacket and her purse and followed the doctor to her examination room._

_Doctor McMahon was an older woman who, for as long as Carrie could remember, which was quite a long time, had looked exactly the same. She had her silvery hair tied up in a ponytail, a pair of wire rimmed glasses whose size seemed disproportionate to the rest of her face and a white lab coat with an ID tag that read: DOCTOR JEANNETTE MCMAHON in bold black font. Her examination room had changed as little as the good doctor had. With it's two plastic chairs, multiple medical devices and the colourful posters proclaiming what numerous diseases affected in your body, it was as familiar as any doctor's office you might have seen on television._

_Carrie settled in on the examination table, the clean off-white paper crinkling beneath her._

_"So, Carrie," the older woman started her usual line of inquiry, only changing the first name she started with. "What brings you here today?"_

_Carrie directed her vision to a colourful poster just to the left of where her doctor sat. She couldn't bring herself to look the doctor in the eye._

_"I've been feeling nauseous, tired and cranky for the past few weeks or so," Carrie answered._

_Taking notes, the doctor nodded her head. She paused for a moment and looked up at Carrie._

_"I'm just going to do a quick examination, then send you for some blood tests. After that you will come back so that we can discuss the results._

_Carrie waited patiently as the doctor looked into her ears and throat and checked her temperature. Nothing was off._

_She then proceeded to the blood clinic, and aside from a hiss when they inserted the needle, she didn't feel a thing. She then went back to her doctor's office._

_After another agonisingly long wait, Carrie was called back to doctor McMahon's office. The doctor had a small smirk on her face, the kind that crinkled up her eyes at the side. In her like of work there weren't many happy endings._

_Carrie sat back up on the dark green examination table._

_"Well, it's not bad news," doctor McMahon said with her ever present smirk._

_Carrie instantly relaxed; it was nothing life threatening._

_"It is, however, quite important you listen carefully."_

_Carrie perked up, looking almost like a meerkat who hear an approaching predator._

_"The blood work confirms my suspicions; Carrie, you are pregnant," the doctor's smirk grew a little with this last statement. She had known Carrie for the last ten years and was glad she finally had something good proclaimed by a doctor instead of the living nightmare that was Alzheimer's._

_The news had been much too much of a shock. Everything had finally been going well! The last thing she needed now was change, let alone one this influential._

_As she looked back, Carrie was ashamed at her reaction to the prognosis. Her breath hitched and her vision began to swim. Her first thought was of the night she and Al had spent together- surely that was when the baby was conceived. How was she to tell him that their one night stand that was supposed to have no strings attached had suddenly turned into having an arresting cable hooked onto it, refusing to let the one night stand be only that._

_"No," she told her doctor, "you're wrong. I can't- I just- I can't be pregnant. It's just not possible."_

_With this, Carrie picked up her belongings and furiously began wiping tears from her eyes._

She snapped herself out of her reverie and continued on her way to the squad room.

When she finally got there she was greeted by photos of a woman with bright red hair who was covered in blood and deathly pale. Needless to say, this did nothing to quell her impending nausea. But it wasn't the gore that irritated her stomach, oh no. It was the gentle swell of the victim's abdomen.

It was double homicide.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Happy Easter everyone! Thank you for all the wonderful reviews! They're what keep me writing! Also, as I forgot to indicate in the first author's note, I'm pretending that season 2 episode 2 was about one month after the finale of season 1 and (unfortunately) these characters don't belong to me. Sigh.

Oh, and sorry for the less eloquent chapter ahead, I wrote it during a bought of insomnia last night.

…

Everyone a part of the NYPD's Major Crime Unit was abuzz with curiosity and horror. Each and every member (so really only Jay, Murray, Carrie and Al) couldn't believe their eyes.

"Alright," Al said in an presenter's voice gesturing towards the large screen made up of four separate monitors. "The victim is Angela Jackson. She was approximately three months pregnant as of last -"

Al 's description of the victim was cut off by Murray who looked as though she couldn't decide whether to look sorry for the victim or in awe.

"That's not the Angela Jackson, right? The one who is - was - starring in Daydreams?" She asked. Three faces looked completely shocked at her.

"I didn't know you had a thing for musicals," an astonished looking Jay said. Who would have thought that behind the tough cop exterior beat the heart of a theatre lover?

"No… no, I'm not the musical lover. It my twelve year old daughter. She hasn't stopped talking about the premiere of Daydreams since it was first announced last year," Murray clarified.

A moment passed with everyone just absorbing the new information. They weren't dealing with the murder of an ordinary citizen. Not even that of an ordinary pregnant citizen. No, they caught the one case that had to do with a pregnant celebrity. The press was going to have a field day.

"And the fact that our victim was pregnant wasn't the worst part," Al started.

The team froze. What was worse than a pregnant victim, the loss of a life that hadn't even survived long enough to live? Could something really be worse than the murder of an unborn child?

"Worse how?" Carrie her condition it was hard for her to fathom something that was more devious.

"I ran the MO through ViCAP," Jay said as he started pulling up files onto the large screen. The sound of clicking keys filled the air and moments later the pictures of two other young women, both obviously expecting and both obviously having their throats slit appeared in front of the squad. Carrie barely managed to keep down what remained of her breakfast that morning as she felt it clawing at the back of her throat dying to be released. Still, she managed not to be sick, though, and kept her attention focused on what Jay was saying.

"It looks like our guy's a serial killer. The brass that were our predecessors nicknamed him "The Stork" for two reasons: one, he only killed famous pregnant women, and two, he always let behind a printed out picture of a stork rolled up in the vic's mouth," Jay read all the information off the screen. "Real sicko if you ask me."

"And, unfortunately for ms. Jackson, she seemed to fit into each and every category," Carrie muttered, just loud enough for the others to hear her.

…

Twenty minutes later, Carrie was in the stark white room that was Jo's Medical Examiner's examination room. Every time Carrie set foot in the place she couldn't help but, for lack of a better term, feel her skin begin to crawl. It must have been the cold, snowy white that adorned every visible surface (with the exception of the stainless steel autopsy tables, of course).

"Good morning, Carrie. So nice to see you after our little tall this morning. I got the distinct impression you were trying to avoid my question," Jo said, an obviously forced cheery expression plastered on her face like some sort of twisted Halloween mask.

Carrie smirked a little at her greeting- obviously Jo was still a little stung that Carrie didn't confide the identity of the- her- baby's father in her. But she just couldn't bring herself to do it. In her mind, the baby was in her body, she had control over it's future, she didn't need to bother Al with something to distract him from this case.

"I'm only here on business, Jo. What's the verdict on Angela Jackson?" Carrie asked hoping to avoid their earlier subject of conversation.

With an exasperated look, Jo turned towards the body on her autopsy table.

"Cause of death is definitely exanguination. The poor thing bled out almost instantly. But I did find something interesting," Jo said as she gestured to the victim's slightly enlarged stomach. When Jo pulled back the sheet, Carrie had to look away. Right near the highest part of the swell was an opening that could only have been made by a knife.

Jo, though usually not one to be overly sympathetic, place a hand on Carrie's arm after seeing the slightly sick expression that had taken up residence on her face.

"Carrie, there's a bucket right over there if you need to throw up," Jo said quietly and soothingly as she gestured towards the small bin located by the door. "This probably isn't easy to see right now."

"I'm fine," Carrie repeated what had seemed to become her stock phrase. "It's just… she was so young, so beautiful and so full of talent. Why would anyone want to kill her?"

Jo pulled away and indicated the victim's ring finger on her left hand.

"She wasn't married," Jo started. "Maybe the baby's father didn't want to be a dad."

"Yeah…" was all Carrie managed to get out. "I better start heading back to the squad room." With that, she turned on her heel and started to walk away. Jo's voice caught up with her, though.

"Carrie if you ever need to talk about what's going on, just remember I have done this three times."

Carrie turned around, nodded and continued to walk out.

…

Back at the squad room, Carrie found a new lead. It seemed that all three victims went to the same abortion clinic on the other side of the city, though they never actually went through with the abortion itself. This new information have Carrie an idea. She didn't want to have a baby, Al didn't even know of it's existence, so why not make a little trip there herself. All she needed for was someone to drive her, someone who wouldn't ask too many questions about why she would be the only one going in or why they needed to question people at an abortion clinic.

Carrie walked to Jay's desk and, upon seeing that he was digging around the financials of all three victims, Angela Jackson, Mary Naldi and Whitney Shari, proceeded to walk over to Murray's desk. Murray, too, was hard at work looking for similarities between the victims aside from the fact that they were all relatively famous (a world-renown physicist and a school teacher the New York Times had covered for one reason or another joined the talented Broadway actress in the way they were killed), had red hair and were pregnant.

Carrie was at a loss. Both Jay and Murray were busy. That left the one person she absolutely couldn't ask: Al. If he found out why she was going to the abortion clinic he would have a cow. And a sheep. And the whole damn farm.

Then again, if she didn't ask him to go today she wouldn't get the chance to at all. After all, after today someone else would have checked it out. Time to swallow your pride, she told herself. Just go ask him to drive you.

She took a deep breath and walked over to Al's desk. He was crouched over some papers, his face scrunched up as if trying to comprehend their information. After a brief second of closing her eyes, Carrie cleared her throat. Al's eyes suddenly lifted as though he just realised her wasn't the only one in the room.

"Yeah?" He said looking up at her as if she had interrupted him, which, she thought, come to think of it I probably have.

"Can you drive me to the abortion clinic all three victims drove to? I really want to interview some of the doctors or nurses and the parking's horrible and I need someone to keep the car running," Carrie said. She knew she was rambling, but she hope Al didn't take any notice to that particular fact.

"Glad to know what I'm good for," he said as though he were mad, but the small smirk that formed on his face betrayed the annoyance in his voice.

…

Thirty-seven minutes later (Carrie always counted the number of minutes when she was nervous), Carrie was inside getting the papers she needed from the receptionist.

It was strange, she had never expected a place like this to look so cheery. Surprisingly, it had each wall painted a soft pastel colour, be it pink, purple or pale blue. What remained the same as any medical institution she had ever been in, however, was all the doctors and nurses running around.

She sat down on the cold, hard, plastic chair which seemed to be required at every medical institution and started writing in her answers.

Right as she was writing in that she was six weeks pregnant, she heard the door of the clinic open. She heard footsteps coming closer towards her.

Soon she could tell there was someone looking over her shoulder.

"Carrie?!" A bewildered Al exclaimed. He had seen how far along she was on the sheet.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: thank you again for the excellent reviews! Each and every one brings a big, dopey smile on my face!

I'm so sorry I haven't updated in so long! Real life got in the away again. But don't worry, no matter how long it takes I will finish this fanfic! (I love writing this so much I've already started thinking about a sequel :))

I hope you all enjoy this chapter- it's full of angst with just a smidgen of fluff to cut the tension. Well, enough of my rambling! On with the story!

Carrie sat on the chair in the waiting room frozen as a statue. She hadn't felt this anxious since… well, ever, really. And being her, she would remember.

Al couldn't help but stare at her for a moment. Very few bits of news in the course of his life had rendered him speechless, and yet this must have been the most shocking one of them all. Carrie was pregnant? Probably with his kid? And wanted an abortion? All the facts just didn't seem to add up in his mind. Carrie was great with kids! There was no doubt she would be an excellent mom. And didn't she know that she could always trust him to stick by her no matter what? Granted, they hadn't actually been dating since that fateful night in Syracuse in the dingy dive motel. There was only one thing his mind kept jumping back to; why didn't she tell him that she was pregnant?

"Why did you come in here?" Carrie finally asked. Really, she was looking for anyway to break the awkward silence that had followed his outburst.

"I got a call from Murray. Something about a break in the case. You left your phone in the car so I figured I should come in and get you," he said, anger slipping into his otherwise numb voice. "How are your interviews going, by the way?" He added with more than a little bite to his voice. It was as if every word that popped out of his mouth attached itself to Carrie's skin and burned it's way though until it was a part of her very being.

Carrie avoided his eyes. She felt as though she were a scorned child.

"We should probably get going," Carrie suggested.

"Yeah we probably should," Al replied almost immediately.

The first five minutes of the car ride were quieter than a ballerina's foot touching the ground after a beautiful grand jeté. Carrie stared out the window of Al's car, her head propped up on her hand. Instead of conversation she chose to count how many rain drops rolled down her window.

Al's usual lax grip on the steering wheel was unusually tight. The one time Carrie dared a glance in his direction she could see a grim expression on his face.

Almost against her will, Carrie's face adopted a blank expression, and memories caused reality to melt away, giving way to an unwelcome retelling of the life of Carrie Wells.

…

"Al…" a twenty-seven year old Carrie Wells giggled, her arms wrapped around her current boyfriend. Let's just say their date the night before had gone very well. "We have to go to work!"

Carrie and Al were at her apartment in Syracuse. Each wall of her bedroom was painted a deep shade of red and had a different painting. A watercolour here, an abstract painting there. One thing he remembered Carrie saying once was that the reason she loved abstract was because no matter how many times you look at an one, there was always something new to see.

"I think we could spare five minutes," Al replied as he peppered Carrie's face and neck with little kisses

Carrie's already large smile seemed to grow the more Al kissed her. They pulled apart briefly, both looking into each other's eyes.

"I love you," Al said softly as he pushed a tendril of auburn hair out of her eyes. He was waiting for her her typical response of "I love you, too" but it never came.

"I…" she started. "I have to tell you something."

In an atypical Carrie fashion, she couldn't bring her eyes to meet his. Gone was the confident sparkle that usually resided there had vanished without a trace.

"Yeah," Al said concernedly.

Instead of beating around the bush, Carrie came right out with her announcement.

"I think I'm pregnant," she said.

Al gently lifted her chin so that she was looking at him and kisses her lips lightly.

"That's the best news I've ever heard," he said, his nose just touching hers.

"I said I think. I haven't taken the test yet," Carrie reminded him.

"When are you going to take it?" Al asked. He was dying to know if he would be a father with the woman he loved most in the world.

"Right after work. Now let's get moving before we're both late!"

…

Tears welled in Carrie's eyes as the the big, blue negative sign reappeared in her mind, followed by the shattered and haunting look of disappointment on Al's face. If she were honest with herself, she was disappointed, too.

But it had been different back then. She and and were dating seriously. She knew that he would stick by her and that if they did have a kid it would have both of it's parents. Now, though, she wasn't so sure. What they had done back when they were in Syracuse investigating Becky's murder wasn't so much making love as it was a way to allow Carrie to feel numb, a little benign forgetting. Their dalliance only months earlier had been nothing but a taste of the forbidden as it was against department policy both in Queens and NYPD for a ranking officer to be romantically involved with a subordinate officer. Al's job could have been on the line for sexual misconduct with a subordinate officer.

Finally breaking the tense silence that filled the card and made both him and Carrie feel as though the air was choking them, Al spoke up.

"So…" he started, a slight edge still present in his voice. Carrie wasn't sure if he would ever forgive her for what she almost did. Not that if she had done it it would have altered his life terribly. "You're pregnant?"

A soft "yeah," came from Carrie, spoken as if he were merely stating an oblivious fact.

"With my kid?" Al continued, his eyes darting to her for a moment and then back on the road.

Carrie's face burned and she suddenly felt like a mama bear trying to protect her cub.

"It's not 'your kid'," Carrie started and Al felt his stomach drop the ought the floor of his car.

"And," Carrie continued. "It's not 'my kid'. It's our baby, Al. It will never be just mine or yours.

Al couldn't help but smirk at her comment. It was so typical Carrie to focus on the details and take a comment the wrong way. The smile was wiped away as the scene from the abortion clinic played over in his head. Carrie had almost made sure he wasn't going to be a father.

It was almost as if his mouth wasn't connected to his brain, that it was moving on it's own free will when his next question popped out.

"Why did you go to the clinic?"

"Because," Carrie answered. She wasn't sure how to continue, so she paused for a moment. "Because I didn't know if you wanted to be a father."

Al pulled into the parking lot of the NYPD's bland, beige bricked building.

He clicked the ignition off, and pulled out the keys. When he finally made eye contact with her she didn't see the fury or rage she was expecting. No, instead in it's place she found his eyes soft, a small sad smile took the place of the angry pursed lips she was expecting to see.

"You could have just asked me," Al said as though he were pointing out a fact Carrie should have thought of without sounding too condescending or patronising.

"Maybe I don't want to be a mother," Carrie said defiantly, her arms crossed over her chest.

Al could hardly believe his ears. Was this the same woman who had been so kind with child witnesses or even victims who happened to be children (before she was promoted to the homicide task force, of course. Little could be done for child murder victims apart from finding the monster who had stolen their precious gift of life)?

But little did he know that those were the very reasons she didn't want to bring a child into this world. Every day she had to spend countless hours surrounded by corpses and criminals and the pain the loved ones had to suffer through. If she did have a child, what guarantee did she have that she wouldn't become one of those loved ones for yet another time in her life? It seemed even to this day Rachel's murder had an impact on her. It was the day she had learned of the fragility of life.

For Carrie, it felt as though the air in the car was quickly being taken away. Feeling nauseous, Carrie cracked open the passenger door of his car, unbuckled her seatbelt, and let the warm, slightly foul-smelling air fill her lungs.

Their previous conversation ended for now, Al pressed the button to release his seatbelt an turned towards Carrie. Casually, he placed his had on her back. Unfortunately for him, Carrie stiffened at the contact. Feeling slightly rejected, al pulled his hand away.

"Are you okay?" Al asked.

"Yeah, fine," Carrie replied quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly.

"Are you sure?" Al verified. "You look like you're about to be sick."

"I'm fine," Carrie insisted. After her response, she could almost feel Al's eyes boring into her and decided to disclose a little more information. "It's just morning sickness."

"Carrie," Al said as though Carrie were oblivious. "It's almost four o'clock."

Carrie couldn't help but give a smirk at the comment. Boy, she thought, was he ever clueless.

"It doesn't only happen in the morning. Lately it's been happening a lot in the late afternoon, too," she said as she turned slightly towards him. "Sometimes it's like this, where I just feel like I'm going to be sick. Other times, it's not so pretty," she added with a slight grimace at the end.

"Aside from that, how have you been feeling lately?" Al said. Just the thought that it was his - their- kid that was causing her to be sick made him feel the slightest bit guilty. Granted, it wasn't him who had initiated the… activities that had allowed for the creation of the child.

"We should probably get back to work."

…

The sun streamed in to the NYPD Major Crimes squad room casting a bright yellow glow throughout the entire room.

Murray and Jay's eyes lifted when they heard footfalls coming in their direction. What they saw surprised even them. Instead of the usually vibrant conversation going on between the two partners it was stone cold silence. Al's hands kept clenching and unclenching and his face wore lightly pursed lips.

Carrie looked about as opposite her partner as she could have. Her eyes seemed slightly red, almost as if from holding back tears, not that any of her squad mates cared to mention it to her. Last time one of the mentioned anything about her looking remotely sad, Carrie denied everything and insisted they come back to work; considering that that had only happened about a week ago, the memory was still fresh in their minds. She also seemed to look slightly green around the gills. Heck, even her scarlet hair looked a little bit paler than usual! Another unusual trait was Carrie's method of carrying herself. Instead of the confident stride, the one with the shoulders back and the head held high, her shoulders seemed slightly hunched over. The way she had both hands on each elbow looked as though she were either hugging herself or trying to get a hold of something that wasn't changing faster than ever.

Both walked towards Murray's desk where Jay already was.

"What took you two so long?" Murray inquired. It was usually a ten minute drive to the clinic, and they had taken almost a half an hour.

"Something came up," was the only explanation she got from Al.

"Alright…" Murray was confused. What could have possibly caused them to be late to find out a crucial new piece of evidence. "Well, as you know, I've got some new clues. The DNA came back from the small bones that were left behind from the foetuses the victims were carrying. It seems that the father was not the same person as we had originally thought. Each one had a different set."

Everyone processed the new information and went back to their desks. Though the day was already long in the tooth, they had a feeling it was far from over.


End file.
